


The Sharpest Lives

by InLoveAndSqualor



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Bandom - Freeform, M/M, MCR, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-05
Updated: 2008-06-05
Packaged: 2017-11-04 05:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InLoveAndSqualor/pseuds/InLoveAndSqualor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Contest Entry<br/>Prompt/Theme: The Sharpest Lives by My Chemical Romance</p></blockquote>





	The Sharpest Lives

Wet clothes clung to a form still shaken from rain and cold. Out in the night’s cruel air, wind had torn through soaked garments, cooled skin and worsened a struggling composure. 

Gerard’s long black hair fell limply about his features, weighed down by wetness. His painfully pale complexion visually jarred with raven locks. A single droplet of rain ran down over Gerard’s face, lingering on chiselled top lip, before coming to rest on rosy lower. Bistre eyes looked so incredibly tired and swam with the mad disregard only intoxication could give him. 

He stood in the doorway; a halo of light from the hall framing his dark figure. With a lingering hand still poised to knock; he leant heavily on the surrounding wall for support. 

The state he was in was painfully apparent in his every aspect. Frank feared Gerard when he was like this. When he was drunk the person Frank knew so intimately, cared so deeply for was always warped. When he was so drowned in cheap whiskey a stranger emerged and stood in his shoes. Borrowed his face and twisted its features, clumsily took a hold of his limbs and used them with none of the grace the real man possessed. The invading force took his voice and said the most beautiful terrible things.

Frank sighed, brought his hand to the side of his head and traced fingers slowly up and down the contours. He closed his eyes momentarily, before bringing them down to gaze at his apartment’s shadow-blackened floor. Ran his fingers from his temple, over cheek bones, across jaw and round to his neck, where yet again he nervously rubbed them back and forth over sleep numbed skin. 

He had been awoken suddenly by the sound of a desperate fist banging against his apartment’s door. Had barely roused himself and stood before it came again; clumsy and inebriated. So sudden and violent that wake up call that his mind still felt shrouded by the blanketing feel of sedation. Sleep still hung about his person, still made his flesh feel numb, his eyes heavy and his world unreal. This could have been a dream, if it hadn’t so painfully typical. 

“Frank,” Gerard breathed; voiced his name through hot tones that were touched with the warm spiced scent of liquor. 

Frank did not look up.

An unsteady foot broke the threshold. A lumbering hand took a hold of the open door.

“I need to sleep on your couch,” he mumbled, stepping further into the room, an awkward, stumbled, trespass. 

Frank stepped back, permitting his friend’s intrusion.

Swiftly Gerard entered the room; turning its mood, souring its air with an uneasy gloom. The atmosphere was thick, choked with depression unkempt and the usual drunk desires unspoken. Sexuality, tension tainted and cool, followed Gerard like a plague when he was like this. His words became slow and hot, his eyes half closed and seductive. It naturally became him, intoxication, and Frank feared Gerard knew this too well. 

Erratic movements cascaded from a form that looked alien and lost in the civility of the indoors. Throwing off his jacket; he let it fall and lay discarded on the room’s time-worn wooden floor. Gerard made his way to the couch that had become his familiar refuge in times like this; times when he felt out of control, unsafe. He sunk onto its soft worn leather and fumbled in his pockets looking for the further comfort of a cigarette. 

Frank slammed his apartment door, left his palm against the cold surface. Lent his weight onto it and let his head fall in fatigue; in weary dread for the events that he knew would soon ensue.

A damp crumpled packet of cigarettes found, Gerard held his lighter and turned it in one hand. Brass was clouded and worn by the countless touches it had endured over time. Its surface marred with slight scratches, small dents and smudged fingerprints. The object looked to Gerard to be the sum of how he felt. 

He placed a cigarette lazily between his lips, pressed lightly down on its tip and raised the lighter, striking its flame simultaneously. Breathing in the pleasant, warm, toxic smoke soothed a body that so desperately needed the calming effect. Its poison stopped in its tracks the shakes that had begun to creep into his form. Languid clouds of smoke curled in front of his face. Tangibly they snaked in the air and danced seductively in curving circles, in bulbous plumes. His senses now barely acknowledged his wet clothes, garments soaked and cold, that hung heavily on a nonchalant frame. Too lost in his own confused thoughts was his mind to consider physical discomfort. The room’s slow spinning was only mildly tangible to him as he pinched a damp fold of the cotton of his shirt between his fingers, released it and let it fall.

“Where have you been?” Frank sighed.

“Dancing,” Gerard replied sleepily, as Frank mouthed back the exact words in unison, in response to his own hollow question. They’d been here so many times before.

Frank knew what Gerard meant by it, what he always meant. 

“Drunk?” He questioned; his voice devoid of any curiosity.

“I suppose,” Gerard laughed. He wanted so much for Frank to stop speaking, just to leave this alone.

Regret was creeping over Gerard; a marching, encroaching emotion that shouted at him, screamed at him, to get up and go. He knew how this was going to end, how this always ended and yet they played out their respective roles so entirely, so perfectly every time. They recited each line as if this had never happened before, as if it were never to happen again; but of course they both knew the truth. It sat in the void between them, taunting, rippling just below the surface.

Gerard took yet another deep inhalation of the wonderfully noxious cigarette smoke; took pleasure in the action as he filled his lungs deeply. He let the smoke slowly deliberately spill out through his nose and mouth; savouring the dull burning, the warm arduous scent. He stared at the tip that was slowly burning itself into extinction. He mused that its very purpose of existence, reason to be, was destroying it completely. He took a last listless drag before extinguishing its life out forever in the ceramic black ashtray that sat staunch and solitary on the coffee table by the couch; placed and kept there solely for Gerard’s use. 

Gerard needed this.

Gerard needed the couch, these walls; the warm air in the familiar room and the comforting scent of him. Gerard needed Frank so badly when he was vulnerable; felt the urgency to be surrounded by the trappings and possessions of that man. He wanted to wrap himself in all that comfort and just sleep; hide away from his intoxicated state, the reality of responsibilities and the life that he had. 

When he had been out and drowned his soul in sins and whiskey; he needed to be here. 

Frank loathed this, hated this. 

He hated seeing his friend so lost. He hated the unspoken agreement that they had slowly evolved over years of friendship. He loathed the way he was subjected to this mess of a man; broken from transgressions soon to be forgotten, from poisons numerous and plenty. He had to be the strong one on these nights; the one to help. But he always felt so useless. Frank just had to stand and endure the sight of Gerard robbed of all the aspects that made him great. Frank knew that soon he would retreat to his room and leave his friend passed out on his couch. A body, mind and soul utterly resigned to the effects of his bender. Unconscious and angelic in his slumped repose; bathed in the smell of tobacco, strong liquor and the musk of hot heady nights in seedy clubs and hours spent dancing. 

Gerard lent back into the soft upholstery of his friends couch. The leather felt cool and soft against his skin; evoked sensation in inches of flesh he had feared lost to the mild sedation of alcohol. He pulled his lower lip softly between his teeth in thought and relished the small tingle of pain caused, the effect of the mild pressure he had applied down on its surface. 

“We need to go back on the road,” Gerard began suddenly. 

Nervously he caught his fingers between their opposites, stared at them frowning and ran an uneasy nail under its counterparts.

“I need to be back on the road,” he continued, eyes locked down.

Frank stood motionless, by the door still, lost in thoughts that had stopped him so completely in his tracks

“I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be here. When we’re away… It’s ok. I’m ok,” he whispered now, the desperation that forced those sentiments apparent in every choked syllable. 

Frank remained silent. Too weary to act, too broken by the terrible crushing pain that truly they both shared. He felt its brutal touch as completely and as intensely as his friend; but resolved to endure it wordlessly for the sake of them both. He knew that the beauteous sinful acts, the dirty wondrous sensations, the guilty heady feelings they indulged in must be confined to the depths of hidden back rooms and motels in towns miles away from home. Places where sin could hide in the shadows and take two people over completely without the cruel face of reality ever having to be invited. He missed so deeply the feel of desire warmed skin pressed against his own, hot damp lips dashed upon his naked chest, over collarbones, neck, up jaw and to his waiting lips.

Frank’s head snapped up from the limp listless position it had occupied. It was a dull thud and a clink that had roused him from deep contemplation. 

Gerard stood at Frank’s kitchen counter, a glass in hand. A half emptied bottle of whiskey sat by his side, a glistening pool surrounded it; the evidence of his deteriorating coordination. 

Soft warm lips made the connection with cool hard glass; the object lingered momentarily to allow Gerard to consider the feel of the slight weight cushioned on their surface. Fingers barely grasping the vessel shook quietly. Anticipation grew for that burning taste, the numbing sensation, a purest warming wave. The scent corrosive and rich filled his senses, rushed in and hit the back of his throat; invaded his lungs. That caustic aroma caused histories to be present. Glorious memories vivid and painfully clearly evoked rushed to greet him; so intertwined those events were with the substance. That scent was indelibly linked with moments lost to time. Regretfully he surmised that all of his snatched occasions of happiness were in some way shamefully tied to it.

_The image of a drunken hand in the night fumbling desperately across an ashen hip. A flash of black jeans sitting loosely just below. Obsidian silken hair brushing against counterparts. Cascading over companions, helpless against the force of a wild kiss in a shadow bathed backstage room. A squalid room that literally hums with untamed sexuality spilling across its air. Hot sighs and moans reverberated off the walls and tangibly filled every inch of cramped space. The feel of a kiss that tasted of countless desperate shots of whiskey mixed with the scent of tobacco burnt and inhaled hours before._

He swallowed the memory laced shot in one violent act; shuddered at the taste and cursed how his body so violently and physically rejected its consumption. 

He placed down heavily the emptied glass. Let his fingers linger on its dampened rim; dance along the curve.

Gerard wanted more. He wanted more than just liquor soaked glimpses at the past. He knew shamefully that each sip of sweetest purest poison he took was just to in some tenuous way bring him closer to those sinful precious memories of nights away with the band. Nights where intoxication led to stolen glances, to whispered secrets, to touches, to acts that would have never existed were it not for the recklessness alcohol inspired. He clung to the promise of being there again, away from a real life; where the only things that existed were the next show and the next night of excess. 

Gerard looked towards his friend. He saw the agony of their shared burden in his stance, his person, deep in his eyes. He took a shaky step forward; held out his hand as if attempting to reach out to touch, let the gesture linger momentarily, before wearily he let it fall. He felt need and desire, intensified by intoxication, swell up and exceed sense and abstinence; swallow them entirely whole. 

A sigh escaped pursed lips, followed by desperate stumbled words. 

“You know how when we were kids… We’d always say we wanted to burn out. Burn out and not fade away. We lived by that… I mean for a while, away with the band, we lived it and it was great…. I want that, I need that,” Gerard cried; begged with eyes tired and heavy. Felt a lower lip quiver on the verge of tears, felt a soul lament and sink deeper into torment, into despair.

Gerard’s every word, his every action, was completely drenched in utter desperation. Alcohol had caused feelings that were once dull and aching, to now burn and bite and tear at his soul. He wanted so much to live the brightest life; the sharpest life. A life where he could be bleary-eyed and sordid; intoxicated and sinful and no one would take a second glance, give another thought to it.

Frank’s mind raced. Each word Gerard spoke was another blow to his heart, each sentiment twisted as it reached him; becoming violent and angry. These wounding words mirrored exactly his own anguished desires; and that was the most painful thing of all. He wanted all those things Gerard longed for; he wanted so much to give in to temptation, to desire, to the heavenly curse of love. He hated being the sober one; and he always was. Always was the one who had to say, who knew, that the sharpest lives were the deadliest to lead; that the brightest lives burnt everything in their path, destroyed all under their seductive tawdry flames.

Frank turned away; turned to retreat to the safety of his room. A room where he could push these thoughts divine and torturous, sordid and sacred to the back of his mind; force them down to sit amongst familiar friends in the darkest recesses imaginable.

Frank felt the unwelcome touch of another, felt Gerard grasp his wrist with cold slender fingers. He winced in remorse and reproach as they wrapped tightly around, dug recklessly into aching flesh.

“Please… No,” he begged; pleaded. 

He knew that if Gerard persisted he would be lost in this all. His touch would turn his resolve, was cruellest alchemy. Gerard always could persuade him. He always did.

Frank was tied, anchored, to the spot. Conflict unholy and untamed prevented both resistance and reciprocation; left Frank a rabbit in the headlights of a speeding car. This love, this lust, it felt deadly. It was deadly and irresistible. 

He shuddered as he felt cool lips on his neck, a hand trace over the shape of his hip and slowly move to dip between folds of clothes to steal touches of ashen flesh. 

Frank turned; turned around hesitantly to a hand reaching up to clasp his cheek, to warm breath falling over his features and the grateful eyes of a lover.

Gerard’s lips felt cold as they fell into his. Felt cold as they pushed against Frank’s own pair that were warm and uncertain. 

Gerard clasped Frank’s wrist tightly and pinned it to his side; determined not to loose this closeness, the intimacy he had so longed for. Hastily he grasped a firm hold on his lover’s unkempt hair and relished the deep moan that this act invoked. Hands heavy from drink and his unbearable lust refused to impart tender touches. They stumbled over their trembling conquest, burdened hips and waist and pulled at garments to gain the feel of hot flesh beneath. 

“I’ve missed this,” he whispered through panted breaths; through lips millimetres apart from his lovers. 

Powerless to respond with words, Frank gazed down to the floor and gave a pained nod of agreement, a reluctant admission. That one simple action spoke a thousands words that he himself failed to muster. It told of sleepless aching nights, hot and strained in the half light, the insomnia stained early hours. It told of sleepless longing; longing for sordid words, for illicit touches and ungodly deeds.

Gerard turned his back on his friend; faced away to conceal the tears gathering in his eyes. 

Awaited those words that Frank always gave; the usual mumbled apology followed by the hollow invitation to make himself at home. Gerard knew that then he would stalk to his room, close the door and leave him alone in the darkness of rejection; the loneliness of drunken regret. 

But those words never came. 

Gerard felt the long-awaited sensation of a warming touch; of the light pressure and weight of hands on a desolate body crying out for contact, for love. Frank’s arm was wrapping tenderly around his torso, causing the welcome feel of another pressed into Gerard’s back.

Frank allowed a possessive hand to trace leisurely around from the pleasant feel of resting on abdomen to grasp an exposed hip. Unexpectedly he felt the alien sensation of a smile creeping across his face. Slowly he ran his opposite hand up a curved back, lingering in places to map slight dips, elegant curves; traced the graceful forms of bones delicately evident under soft warm skin. He trailed fingers into dampened hair and let them become lost in the obsidian-hued tangle. He clutched firmly the seized locks and pulled back with relish. 

Gerard groaned loudly in response as his head shot back and his spine arched. 

Frank felt his own breath quicken as he took a hold of a shivering hip, and tightened his jealous grip on his lover’s hair. He moaned softly as Gerard pushed back into his lap, a fruitless attempt to accommodate the firm pull he endured. Frank released ebony strands to take possession of slender hips; forced his friend further closer, to push harder against him. The resulting pressure on his growing hardness induced in him a low stifled groan and small breathless gasps.

“You want this… Don’t you?” Frank half asked, half instructed, through hot shaky tones; through trembling lips and a failing tongue.

He unbuttoned his friend with barely capable hands. Shaking with anticipation and excitement; fingers succeed in their task through impossible odds. He felt the crushing delirium at the knowledge that he was so incredibly close to fulfilling the need, the desire that drove his every action so completely.

“Yes,” Gerard finally replied. His words had the husky breathy sound of a person lost in the thralls of desire; enraptured by soft touches, by violent caresses. 

Frank felt a wave of joy; of excitement, rare and exquisite, wash over him. 

He felt the sting of regret for all those moments that could have been; all the time lost. He scorned himself for the way he had so stubbornly insisted on their long agonising abstinence. 

Trapped in hedonistic pleasures, in carnal desires, he had lost the will to resist any longer. 

He welcomed their forbidden love to destroy them both. He needed these sensations, these feelings. It was worth the risk; he knew he was nothing without them.

He wrapped shaking arms around his lover, holding him tightly to his chest. The embrace caused their torsos to press firmly, pleasingly, together. He rested a heavy head onto Gerard’s shoulder, pressed a flushed cheek against another. Frank let out a shallow sigh and made a conscious effort to quiet his erratically beating heart.

Consequences discarded; he knew he wanted to be lost in this terrible forbidden indulgence; bathed in the thrill of carnal pleasures forever more. Frank knew that a love so sharp, so bright was going to wound, was going to burn. But it was better than the ache of endless want; of living without the only person he had ever truly desired.

“I want to burn out,” he whispered unsteadily.

“I want the sharpest life… I want that life with you,” he sighed

Each word painted in the softest traces of arousal; the faintest allusions of the truest love.

**Author's Note:**

> Contest Entry  
> Prompt/Theme: The Sharpest Lives by My Chemical Romance


End file.
